Wall Street rallies at end of roller coaster week

STORY: Wall Street rallied on Friday, ending a turbulent week of wild market swings as relief over signs of peaking inflation competed with fears that policy tightening by the Federal Reserve could tilt the U.S. economy into recession.

The Dow finished about a percent and a half higher. The S&P 500 ended up about 2.4%, while the Nasdaq soared 3.8%

But despite the day's gains, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their sixth consecutive weekly loss, the longest losing streak since the fall of 2012 for the S&P 500 and since the spring of 2011 for the Nasdaq.

And the Dow notched its seventh consecutive weekly dip, its longest losing streak since 1980.

Christian Ledoux is director of investment research at CAPTRUST.

"We are seeing a recovery rally from a pretty steep decline over the last week or so. We still have so much uncertainty that market participants don't have a clear direction anymore. And the uncertainty, we think at CAPTRUST, is really related to inflation and more specifically, that Fed response to inflation.”

In the past six trading days, the U.S. Labor Department delivered four economic reports suggesting inflation hit its peak, welcome news for market participants worried that the Fed's upcoming spate of interest rate hikes could spark a recession.

Friday's gains were led by a rebound in megacap tech stocks, which sold off heavily in recent sessions.

Shares of Twitter dropped 9.67% following Elon Musk's tweet that he had put the $44 billion cash buyout deal on hold, as he waits for the social media company to provide more info on fake accounts.

Meanwhile, shares of Tesla jumped 5.71%, as some analysts believed a broken deal could alleviate pressure on the stock.

Retail trading platform Robinhood surged nearly 25% after crypto billionaire Samuel Bankman-Fried, head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, revealed a 7.6% stake in the company.

And, finally, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway disclosed buying more shares of Occidental Petroleum, sending shares of the oil company up 8.2%.